Breaking the news of Space Shuttle Challenger

It was my generation’s “I remember where I was when I heard the news” moment: the day Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the air after launch. It happened 30 years ago today.

My “where was I” story is a little unusual — I was on the radio, and I broke the news to our listeners.

CBS News photo

That makes it sound like so much more than it was. I was a freshman in college playing records on the campus radio station. WMHD broadcast at 160 watts from the eastern edge of Terre Haute, Indiana. Our signal could be heard well only up to about two miles away. I figure our listenership at that time of day was in the dozens.

My friend Michael burst into the studio carrying a portable television. He said, “The space shuttle just blew up,” as he plugged the TV in and turned it on. ABC News was already replaying the explosion over and over.

We watched silently, in disbelief, for several minutes. And then I realized I had a certain responsibility to tell our listeners, however few.

I let the song play out, and then I played our news sounder. I shook as I stood at the mic; my voice shook as I began to speak. I don’t remember just what I said, but I do remember tripping over my tongue. At least I got the word out.

And then I felt useless. WMHD had no real news department, just a couple students who rewrote stories out of the paper and off the UPI wire and read them on the air. All I could do, just like anybody else, was to keep watching TV. I went on the air after every record to update the story, but eventually told our listeners to find a TV and follow the story there.

I finished my shift playing records, I’m sure, for nobody.

Where were you when you heard the news about Challenger? Tell the story in the comments, or on your own blog (and please link back here)!

It was a weekday early in my career. Someone else in the office announced the explosion, and I remember being taken aback by it.
I recall thinking that this wasn’t supposed to happen. It was the 1980s, for goodness sake. I could remember that Gus Grissom had been killed, but hadn’t we advanced past the Shuttle being that dangerous?
It was a lesson in how small we are in the universe and how the best science and engineering can sometimes fail.

What a tough thing to have to do, Jim, but I admire your instincts: Let the song play out, and share the news. Your station manager must have been very proud of you for handling it with such professionalism. I imagine that breaking the news to your listeners in your own voice made this event much more personal for you.

My memories also come from college, but invoke a detached sense of disbelief as I walked into my dorm between classes. There was a TV in the lobby, and the footage of the explosion was on a replay loop. Launch. Soar. Explode. Launch. Soar. Explode. I vividly remember thinking of the astronauts’ families, and how horrible it would be for them to see this same footage over and over again.

Only later — when I watched the World Trade towers come down — would I understand that this sense of detached disbelief is a coping mechanism that allows us to more or less continue to function when the impossible or unthinkable happens. I’ve had a few more moments like that since we lost the Challenger and her crew, but that event remains for me a marker of sorts of the day I first encountered breaking news without an adult filter to explain it and help me make sense of it.

Oddly enough, I was at home sick that day. My sister and I both had some sort of bug and were simply sitting there watching whatever was on to distract our sick heads – perhaps it was the launch itself back when they were still being regularly broadcast. Anyway, we got to see it in real time and it was really bothersome to watch. The network, likely CBS, kept reminding everyone about the female civilian aboard and how she likely perished, never mind the rest of the crew.

Years later, when taking my engineering ethics course in college, one of the people who worked for Morton-Thiokol came and told us the inside story of the infamous o-rings. The entire event was utterly avoidable.

I sort of missed it. That day I was headed to the junkyard to search for car parts, just before I left I watched the first part of the lift off, then turned off the TV and went about my business. I probably missed seeing the disaster live by seconds, and didn’t find out until later in the day.

That’s happened a few times in my life, I also didn’t find out about the death of Princess Diana and the September 11 attacks (if you can believe that) until later.

I remember that this was one of the rare times when I got up early to watch a launch. When it was delayed I decided to go back to sleep. When I got up later I checked the news and found out what happened. Even though I knew that the shuttle was more dangerous than NASA would say I still was pretty shocked.

I also remember hearing about Diana while I was on a Saturday morning donuts run. It was a sad thing but didn’t seem that important to me. When I got home I mentioned it to my wife at the time and see acted like her best friend had died. I think she spent the next few days glued to the coverage.

Hi Jim, wow, I remember this one well. I was geeky kid in high school, went to school just to take a test, came back home early and saw this on the news. Ted Koppel, I think. Being an astronomy nerd, I remember it hitting me quite hard. Shocked. Further angered when it was revealed that this had been building up due to NASA’s neglect and attempts to keep deadlines, no matter what. Thanks for this post, we should never forget.

I was in a television studio in New York directing a three camera home shopping show. There was one small monitor in the control room that was showing a live network feed. I remember glancing across the room several times, trying to focus on what I was seeing on the tiny screen. We stopped tape.

I heard about it a weeks or so after it occurred. When I happened I was hiking in the mountains of South-East Australia. I’d been out there for a month with no radio, paper or contact to the outside world. Someone told me about it after I finished the hike.